Artist: Seba Calfuqueo (Mapuche, born 1991, Santiago, Chile)
Title: Tray Tray Ko
Date: 2022
Medium: Single-channel video, color, sound
Duration: 6 minutes, 13 seconds
Credit Line: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), New York,  2024.27

Tray Tray Ko is a six-minute media artwork by Seba Calfuqueo, a Mapuche artist whose practice spans video, performance, ceramics, and installation.

The work centers on trayenko—waterfalls—which hold deep significance in Mapuche cosmology. As Calfuqueo describes, “the trayenko is a vital and sacred space to many of the Mapuche people’s practices; the flow of the water, especially of the trayenko, is of utmost importance and is linked to the lawen—medicinal herbs that grow near water bodies.“

The video follows Calfuqueo as they traverse a lush, forested landscape, walking backward while pulling a long, metallic blue fabric that cascades down a staircase and trails behind them like a river. The sheen and movement of the fabric mimic the visual and sonic qualities of flowing water, emphasizing the artist’s connection to the land. Over time, the journey grows more arduous—Calfuqueo enters a rushing river, continuing to drag the now-soaked fabric upstream, against the current, before disappearing beneath a waterfall. The performance, underscored by the roar of water and the chime of the artist’s dangling earrings, suggests a meditation on persistence, resilience, and the interwoven relationship between body and landscape.

The final moments of the video feature a poem, written in Mapuzungun and Spanish, that speaks to healing—perhaps directed at the Earth itself. The text reflects on the ritual of collecting medicinal plants near water and hints at the challenge of reversing ecological harm. Overall Tray Tray Ko is a powerful meditation on water, place, and the human body’s relationship to the natural world. As climate change accelerates, Tray Tray Ko asks urgent questions about humanity’s role in environmental destruction and the potential for restoration. It highlights water as a living, sacred force and an agent of both memory and renewal.

Watch Tray Tray Ko

In their practice, Seba Calfuqueo often examines the intersections of Indigenous and Western perspectives, dismantling colonial narratives while engaging themes of feminism, queer theory, and environmental rights. Through visual storytelling, Calfuqueo reflects on the social, cultural, and political dynamics of Mapuche identity within contemporary Chilean and Latin American society. Their work has been exhibited in Chile, Perú, Brasil, México, United States, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, Sweeden, Switzerland, Australia. Recent exhibitions include solo presentations at Galería 80m2 Livia Benavides, Galería D21, Galería Metropolitana, Parque Cultural de Valparaíso y el MAC -Museo de Arte Contemporáneo- de la Universidad de Chile, Quinta Normal, en Santiago de Chile.They were awarded with the Municipalidad de Santiago award on 2017 and Premio Fundación FAVA on 2018.

The acquisition of Tray Tray Ko deepens The Block’s engagement with Indigenous perspectives and environmental themes. The work enters into dialogue with other pieces in the collection, including Sky Hopinka’s Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer (2019) and Andrea Carlson’s Perpetual Genre (2024), both of which reimagine landscape as a site of history, resistance, and storytelling. It also offers a compelling counterpoint to works like Will Wilson’s Shiprock Disposal Cell, Shiprock, New Mexico, Navajo Nation (2020), which examines extractive colonial relationships to land, whereas Calfuqueo’s work foregrounds Indigenous practices of environmental care and healing.

Beyond its resonance with the collection, Tray Tray Ko contributes to The Block’s commitment to fostering interdisciplinary dialogue. Calfuqueo’s work has strong potential for teaching and research across Northwestern, including in the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, the Environmental Policy and Culture Program, and the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR). It also builds upon past public programs at The Block that explore Indigeneity and environmental justice, featuring artists such as Fox Maxy (Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians and Payómkawish) and TJ Cuthand (Nêhiyaw/Cree).

By bringing Calfuqueo’s work into The Block’s collection, the museum continues to broaden conversations on Indigenous artistic expression, ecological interdependence, and the reimagining of landscape traditions.

– Research Contributed by Bobby Yalam, 2024 Curatorial Assistant